This specific study though has a flawed data set, one that could hardly have been better designed to tell a positive story for the Obama campaign.

And later...

A closer look of the pages shows the exact opposite conclusion. Facebook's public "Talking About" figure showcases the number of people interacting with content on a Facebook page. This is the sum number of people who have liked, shared, or commented on page's content over a seven-day period. As of 12:30 a.m. Thursday, Mitt Romney had 1,579,476 people talking about his page compared with 1,354,550 for President Barack Obama. This means that more people are actually interacting with content on Mitt Romney's page than Barack Obama's page despite Obama's having an almost 7 to 1 advantage in total fans over Romney. This is a remarkable figure, one that I believe reflects the grassroots enthusiasm around the Paul Ryan announcement. If Obama were really "outpacing" Romney online he would need seven times as many people talking about his page than Romney has simply to remain proportional. In reality though, Obama has fewer people talking about his page.

Facebook's public "Talking About" figure showcases the number of people interacting with content on a Facebook page. This is the sum number of people who have liked, shared, or commented on page's content over a seven-day period. As of 12:30 a.m. Thursday, Mitt Romney had 1,579,476 people talking about his page compared with 1,354,550 for President Barack Obama.

In my own personal Facebook experience, there's a shiatload of butthurt Republican friends and family members spamming ridiculous political bullshiat on Facebook these days. The moderates in my family don't post anything political at all and have requested others to tone it down, and the liberals post a few things here and there but for the most part avoid talking politics on Facebook. I've unsubscribed from a good deal of people lately just because I don't want their political beliefs tainting my perception of them, and once the election's over, maybe they'll calm the fark down and be normal humans again.

I don't like to talk politics or religion with people I am friends with and/or am related to. It just sows division and I've learned the hard way not to do that. I've got Fark to argue politics and religion with, not my cousins or friends.

Lando Lincoln:Facebook's public "Talking About" figure showcases the number of people interacting with content on a Facebook page. This is the sum number of people who have liked, shared, or commented on page's content over a seven-day period. As of 12:30 a.m. Thursday, Mitt Romney had 1,579,476 people talking about his page compared with 1,354,550 for President Barack Obama.

In my own personal Facebook experience, there's a shiatload of butthurt Republican friends and family members spamming ridiculous political bullshiat on Facebook these days. The moderates in my family don't post anything political at all and have requested others to tone it down, and the liberals post a few things here and there but for the most part avoid talking politics on Facebook. I've unsubscribed from a good deal of people lately just because I don't want their political beliefs tainting my perception of them, and once the election's over, maybe they'll calm the fark down and be normal humans again.

I don't like to talk politics or religion with people I am friends with and/or am related to. It just sows division and I've learned the hard way not to do that. I've got Fark to argue politics and religion with, not my cousins or friends.

And to be fair, a LOT of the Facebook sharing that I've seen about Mitt has been of the "Can you believe this guy actually said this?" variety. Talking about Mitt doesn't mean support. Sometimes people talking about you is pointing and laughing...

Lando Lincoln:I don't like to talk politics or religion with people I am friends with and/or am related to. It just sows division and I've learned the hard way not to do that. I've got Fark to argue politics and religion with, not my cousins or friends.

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears:Sheer numbers don't tell the tale of how you're being received on the internet. A page getting DOS'd isn't necessarily popular, but it sure is getting a lot of hits.

This is also the guy who's been accused of using bots to make fake twitter friends and the like so I'll take this 'news' with a grain of salt so large it would make Charlie Sheen sit up and take notice.

I remove people from my feed if they post more than one political thing in a day. I've never had to use that policy on a liberal.

Maybe I'm just young and foolish, but how is discourse in this country going to get better if we never talk about politics with the people we're close to? Seems to me like if we can't rely on Congress to work together instead of talking last each other, eventually we the people are gonna need to step out of our bubbles and actually discuss these things?

If its impolite to discuss politics at work, with family, with friends, on Facebook, at parties, then when are we supposed to talk about these things with one another?

I remove people from my feed if they post more than one political thing in a day. I've never had to use that policy on a liberal.

Maybe I'm just young and foolish, but how is discourse in this country going to get better if we never talk about politics with the people we're close to? Seems to me like if we can't rely on Congress to work together instead of talking last each other, eventually we the people are gonna need to step out of our bubbles and actually discuss these things?

If its impolite to discuss politics at work, with family, with friends, on Facebook, at parties, then when are we supposed to talk about these things with one another?

The problem is, I don't think we really can anymore. Discourse has broken down. We're not even working from the same set of basic assumptions anymore, and we've got different sets of facts. Hell, words don't even mean the same thing to different people. There is literally no way to talk about these things. We're doomed.

I remove people from my feed if they post more than one political thing in a day. I've never had to use that policy on a liberal.

Maybe I'm just young and foolish, but how is discourse in this country going to get better if we never talk about politics with the people we're close to? Seems to me like if we can't rely on Congress to work together instead of talking last each other, eventually we the people are gonna need to step out of our bubbles and actually discuss these things?

If its impolite to discuss politics at work, with family, with friends, on Facebook, at parties, then when are we supposed to talk about these things with one another?

It's not about politeness. it's about not wanting to listen to your uncle yammer on about that "Got-damned Obama!" while you're trying to watch football. People who are ill-informed but loudly opinionated don't want their ideas challenged or their minds changed. They also often happen to be conservative more often than not.

My old college professor is as liberal as they come and posts sh*t about GMO being evil almost daily, and is on and on about Big Pharma and the rest of the usual, whacky stuff on the far left. At least she accepts facts like evolution as true though, and isn't buying into conspiracy theories, gold buggery, birtherism and all the other veiled fascism from the far right. She also won't judge and toss insults at you if you disagree with her, and I have disagreed with her on several issues many times.

cameroncrazy1984:That assumes that the people "interacting" with Mitt Romney's fb page are all positive. Somehow I doubt this.

Exactly this... They are somehow confusing the (relatively accurate) 'no such thing as bad publicity' thing with the reality of the internet. We've never had anything like the internet before, and it's still impossible to accurately gauge it. BFD if he has more 'attention', it could just as easily being everyone trying to figure out how today's position conflicts with yesterday's, or how they are going to explain it away. This doesn't directly translate into 'I'm a-gonna vote for Mr. Mitt!!'.